ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that purposefully incorporating decolonizing practices in public history and pedagogy can enhance cultural sustainability. It utilizes the Chinook Nation website to explore integrating students into community-based research in collaboration with Indigenous people in ways that do not replicate the colonial inequities of the past. The chapter suggests that process is as important as product, that a scholarly community can thrive with diverse partners and students, that together they can reshape historical narrative and methodology in critical ways, and that how we work as scholars in a settler society makes a difference. It discusses abandon faith in the superiority of the dominant culture, acknowledges Indigenous communities and their histories and engages Indigenous experts identified by their communities. It also includes tribal protocols and governance and develops narratives that debunk and oppose those that naturalize the colonial past. Educational partnerships between students, teachers, and the Chinook document cultural continuity, a critical component of sustainability.
